


The Ballad of Mr. Munroe

by ThatDamnKennedyKid



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Assuming they are Canadian, Because the lodge is in Alberta, Death from Old Age, F/M, Flashbacks, Growing Old Together, Kinda-not-really songfic?, M/M, Old Age, Which is in Canada, the lyrics are used as speech rather than inserted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 02:58:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5113610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatDamnKennedyKid/pseuds/ThatDamnKennedyKid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He hasn't had a drink in at least a year. To tell you the truth, I'm shocked he's here, but as long as he wants 'em, I'm gonna pour 'em." The bartender cast a sympathetic look down at the old man nursing a whiskey. "Before you came in I asked him why. He just raised his fragile head and wiped his eyes. And then he told me:</p><p>"'I've seen so much in my life I've never questioned. This time the good Lord took me by surprise. Yesterday my Sammie died.'"</p><p>Inspired by Craig Morgan's song, "The Ballad of Mr. Jenkins".</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ballad of Mr. Munroe

Jacob had lived in the small town under the shadow of Mount Washington all his life. He knew all about the legends surrounding the original Hannah and Beth Washington's disappearance - all the spooky stories. He had gone to school with the reincarnated twins, Hannah and Beth Munroe-Washington, for fuck's sake. 

He knew all about the strange family that lived on the Munroe Ranch, too. The unstable recluse Josh Washington, the kindly mother Sam and the gentle father Mike. Not to mention their crazy children and all of their spectacular deaths. 

Amanda had been twenty-seven when she'd been torn apart on the mountain saving a lost teenage skier who fell into an unknown mineshaft. To this day, the girl - Kiara or something - flew up every year for the anniversary of the woman's death and placed flowers and prayers at the tombstone, staying the week with the family before flying home to Australia. Subsequently, Kiara also adopted the little girl Amanda left behind.

Miles had been fifty-four, hit by a semi-truck on a trip to see friends down in Edmonton. His wife died that night too and it crippled his one son. The other took his sibling and moved to Ontario.

Jay had been twenty-nine when, after deciding to fill the void Amanda left behind, he followed her to a similarly grizzly death. His twin girls were taken in by his twin sisters.

Hannah and Beth fell off a sheer cliff together at the age of sixty. They had never had children of their own, but their brother's children were devastated. 

After Hannah and Beth, Josh, Sam and Mike stopped showing up in town. Occasionally, one of them could be seen in the bulk store, quietly avoiding old friends, prying questions and uncomfortable meetings. Eventually, the town learned to leave them alone. 

"I hadn't seen them do something like that since the second mountain incident." Jacob's mother had told him. "Back when they were nineteen, twenty years old. When Mike lost his fingers on that cursed mountain. I've not seen them retreat like this in a long time."

It took the town three years to find out Josh had passed away. At eighty-nine, Josh had fallen asleep in their bed curled up between Mike and Sam, his body kept warm until Mike got up to do the morning chores and Sam tried to rouse him, his skin too cool against hers. A year after losing the women they called their mothers, Rali and Sali buried their grandfather as well. 

Since Josh's death, no one in town ever seen Mike. 

Perhaps that's why, when Jacob sat down at the town's only bar, the Caylei, when he noticed an old man sitting down at the end, his glass full of whiskey. 

"Hey, Marcus, who's that?" He asked the bartender. "What's he doing here?"

The man was old, skin worn and toughened on his face through years in the sun it seemed. As he took along long drink from his glass, he winced and rubbed his chest, white hair shadowing his eyes. He looked like he was in pain, but something told Jacob that it wasn't something the hospital could fix. 

"Well, if you care enough to wonder why, let me tell you." The barkeep leant on the counter, the other patrons sufficiently cared for or otherwise occupied. Besides, in a town like this, they were all intimately familiar with each other. "It all started back in 2014, when old Mount Washington took him by surprise. That's the day the Washington twins disappeared."

"What did they have to do with it?"

"Well, that eighteen year old became a man a little too soon up in that lodge. With his girlfriend Emily. They were the highschool President and First Lady, not meaning for anyone to get hurt. Then things got scary. On December 20, the twins ran into a blizzard. The same year the Washingtons were taken by surprise - that's the day Beth Washington died."

"He was a part of it, though, wasn't he?"

"He was."

"Then what right does he have to be upset at it? He was the catalyst."

"Before you judge him you need to know that there's more to that old man than what you see there on that barstool, with a bourbon in his hand." Marcus cast him a dry look. "You've heard about his younger years, but don't leave now, there's more to hear. It might explain the pain in that old man."

Jacob shut his mouth and nodded. Marcus cast the old man a long, sad look. 

"How quick the town forgot about the lives they lost and life goes on, or that's what they tell ya. No tick or take no reason why, he might have never seen the end of that chapter of his life if he hadn't been saved by Sam. He joined her and Josh in December 2017, no doubt it was the best day of his life. A year after the lodge went up in flames."

Jacob, too, glanced over at the too-thin old man staring down at the amber liquid in his glass. Marcus nodded again.

"Now we've covered chapter two. I can almost see a change in you." He gave a half-smirk. "There's still a lot of life in that old man.

"He hasn't had a drink in at least a year. To tell you the truth, I'm shocked he's here, but as long as he wants 'em, I'm gonna pour 'em." The bartender cast a sympathetic look down at the old man nursing a whiskey. "Before you came in I asked him why. He just raised his fragile head and wiped his eyes. And then he told me:

"'I've seen so much in my life I've never questioned. This time the good Lord took me by surprise. Yesterday my Sammie died.'"

He'd been looking at Marcus, but his head whipped around to the old man, taken aback when those soulful brown eyes, haunted by the lives he'd seen perish around him. Slowly, a sad smile stretched across his lips and he tossed down a fifty on the counter. He stood with a fluidity that almost no one ninety-three years old had. He was shaking slightly, but he pushed the hair from his eyes, straightened his jacket and walked out of the bar, the two rings decorating one of the stumps on his left hand glinting in the afternoon sun. 

Jacob watched him mount a dappled mare with ease, an adolescent wolf coming to stand beside the large animal, looking up at him for instruction. The wind tossed the white bangs all over his face, but he looked more at peace with himself mounted up as he was. Their eyes made connection once more before his crippled hand tapped lightly on the horse's neck and it trotted away, the wolf following at its heels. 

"Who was that, Marcus?"

"That, Jacob, was good old Mike Munroe."

 

 


End file.
